Book excerpt: Excerpt from Local Government in England, Vol. 1 of 2 This book is the result of studies, prosecuted for many years, concerning the development of the domestic politics of England during the nineteenth century. What remains to be said of the origin and plan of the book, besides the explanations given in the introductory chapter, is mainly of a personal character. When I came the first time to the shores of England, more than ten years ago, it was as a student of English Law and Constitution entirely imbued with the ideas and judgments which the great German jurist and scholar, Rudolf von Gneist, had expressed in the many legal and political writings of his long career. But soon I discovered that those writings were not only in many ways obsolete, having been long passed by current practice and by modern legislative reforms, but also that the general idea of the modern political history of England, as given by Gneist, stood in inexplicable contradiction to the real development and the true nature of political facts. These first impressions have been strengthened by incessant study in England itself, until out of my doubts of the theories and judgments of Gneist there has resulted a view of modern English politics, independent of, and in essence opposed to, those views of Gneist which have so constantly been accepted as authoritative by continental learning. Here I have not to explain or justify a view which must rather be justified by the book itself. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.